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Blake Ratner

Dr. Blake Ratner is Executive Director, Collaborating for Resilience—a cross-regional initiative working to address environmental resource competition and strengthen governance and livelihood resilience in interconnected resource domains and landscapes. The initiative works with partners to build capacity for structured, multi-stakeholder dialogue to assess the roots of resource conflict and to foster innovations that build resilient local economies, sustain critical ecosystem services, and increase social and economic well-being.

Dr. Ratner is the immediate past Director General of WorldFish, the CGIAR research institute dedicated to strengthening livelihoods and increasing food and nutrition security through fisheries and aquaculture. As chief executive, Dr. Ratner launched a six-year strategy, leveraging science to pursue transformational shifts in policies, institutional capacities and investments in these sectors, emphasizing private entrepreneurship, gender equity, and climate resilience. CGIAR, the global partnership for a food secure future, combines the efforts of over 10,000 scientists and staff working in over 60 countries across the globe.

Dr. Ratner has published widely on rights, equity, and accountability in environmental decision-making, drawing on insights from action research to inform both policy and practice. As member of the GEF Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel, he has responsibility as adviser on international waters, comprising both marine and freshwater systems, and works across focal areas on integrated approaches to achieve global environmental benefits and enhance environmental security.

Dr. Ratner has been based in Southeast Asia for 13 years (Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia), and has led program implementation in China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zambia. Early in his career he led a regional program on mountains, forests, and watershed governance at the World Resources Institute, co-led an initiative on stakeholder engagement in lending programs and policy advisory services at the World Bank, and worked with social entrepreneurs in Guatemala and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. He is fluent in French, Spanish, and Khmer, and holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sociology and a Masters in Development Administration, both from Cornell University.

Who We Are

The STAP was established as an advisory body to the GEF. STAP provides objective, strategic scientific and technical advice on GEF policies, operational strategies, programs and on projects and programmatic approaches; and, maintains a database of institutions, networks and individual scientists to provide the necessary expertise and advice for the GEF. Read More

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Collaborators

The STAP achieves much of its work through collaborations with leading scientists, experts and practitioners around the world. STAP commissions studies by institutions or individuals, convenes expert working groups and holds workshops to identify the latest scientific knowledge and lessons learned from practice by translating them into operational and strategic advice for the GEF. Read More